WESTMINSTER ABBEY AND THE

CORONATION1

[1902: AET. 39]

O-DAY Westminster Abbey is in a deeper sense than ever the omphalos or navel of the Empire. It is the punctum saliens of the colossal organism, at which all hearts throb in unison. To-day witnesses the crowning of Edward VII with what is now the oldest crown in Europe since the ancient Monarchy of France went down in a storm. The fact that the King of England should still be anointed-as if the crozier were mightier than the sword-and acclaimed-as if instead of being established by Act of Parliament he were elected by the popular voice-is at once an epitome of, and a commentary on, the facts and the spirit of English history. For example, it brings into high relief the distinction between the English and the French character. The French, patient of power, even of tyranny, but ruthlessly logical when driven face to face with a clear issue. The English, impatient of control, jealous, as Disraeli long ago pointed out, of the depositary of power, when any real power exists; but pleased to cherish the symbol if and on condition that it contains no substance.

So imposing and unparalleled a masque of the Middle Ages demands an unique theatre; and unique it is. Just as the King of France was crowned at Rheims, not at Paris, so the King of England is not crowned in the great church of his capital. As a rule the Saxon Kings had been crowned either at Winchester or in St. Paul's; it was with the determination of Duke William of Normandy to be crowned by the grave of the Confessor, the last hereditary Saxon King, that the permanent association of the abbey with the Coronation begins. Richard I was crowned twice, once at Westminster,

and again after his return from captivity, at Winchester. Henry III is the solitary instance of a king crowned apart from Westminster, and even he took the precaution of being crowned for the second time at Westminster. It was on this occasion that the King asked Hugh Grosseteste, the celebrated Bishop of Lincoln, what change was wrought in a King by the anointing. The bishop returned an evasive reply, taking care, however, to add that the effect of the rite was by no means to raise the kingly to an equality with the priestly state. Almost every Coronation ceremony has been marked by some incident, giving it a unique character. The white robes of Charles I, the crown tottering on the head of James II and steadied by Henry Sidney, the falling of the emerald from the crown of George III, all these circumstances took on an ominous character in the reflected light of subsequent events.

Turning to the fabric itself it must be confessed that architecturally the abbey is inferior both inside and out to several of the great French churches. Its overwhelming impression is the outcome less of its form than of the spirit which pervades it. It is no exception to the rule that a Gothic building seems rather to grow than to be made. It occupies the site of a chapel dedicated by Siebert to St. Peter. On this site a church was afterwards erected by King Edward about 980; but, the Danes having demolished the church, Edward the Confessor founded the original of our present abbey in 1065. The building was, of course, in the Norman style, and a quaint representation of it can still be seen on the Bayeux Tapestry. Of the Confessor's building only a few relics survive, such as the Pyx house and the south side of the cloisters. The Norman church was demolished in its turn by Henry III to make room for the splendid building which he began in 1220. It was in his reign that the abbey first assumed the form with which we are familiar, and the reign of Edward I saw it practically complete. Henry VII removed the Lady Chapel of Henry III to make way for his own magnificent chapel, while, lastly, the two western towers, the most conspicuous external feature, were added in the style of a very different period by Sir Christopher Wren. More striking even than the stately lines of the fabric itself are the monuments, which, of all periods and in all styles, crowd the church, and give it its familiar unique appearance. Many wish them away, even of those whose archaism is only relative, who, while blaming one period

because it lacked the qualities, real or imaginary, of another, forget that the purest taste of all is that for the prehistoric, and that the Twentieth Century has no more right to sit in judgment on the abbey which inspired the meditations of Addison and Johnson than had Johnson and Addison to criticise the Church of the Confessor and Henry III as an outcome of the Dark Ages.

In point of fact, the monuments, taken together in all their multifarious incongruity, are the most English thing in the abbey. They express and explain that stubborn continuity which has managed better here than anywhere else to hold out under the strain of a thousand years of vicissitude. As a temple of silence the abbey stands by no means alone. It is visibly unique as a temple of reconciliation.

The use of the abbey as the burial place for meaner dust than that of Kings only gradually grew. Hugolin, the Confessor's Chamberlain, had been buried in the cloisters, but it is in the reign of Richard II that such interments in the church itself first begin to be frequent. The tombs of Courtney (Bishop of Norwich) and Lewis Robsart (the King's standard-bearer) recall the heroic memories of Henry V and Agincourt. In the reign of Elizabeth the abbey begins to assume the character that it has borne ever since of a temple of fame, summed up in Nelson's historical exclamation, "A Peerage or Westminster Abbey."

The great Lord Burleigh lies at Stamford, but he appears at Westminster on the monument to his wife and daughter in the kneeling posture which duly edified Sir Roger.

Of all the earlier monuments none is probably better known than the tomb of Sir Francis Vere, of the "fighting" family of that name. Four kneeling knights support the arms of the dead man, and it is of one of these that Roubiliac is said to have exclaimed: "Hush! he will speak directly!" Blake the admiral, who may be said to have founded the naval supremacy of England, was buried by command of the Protector in Henry VII's chapel, and it is interesting to find the Royalist Clarendon anticipating the sentiment of Nelson: "To encourage his officers to venture their lives, that they might be pompously buried, he was, with all solemnity possible, interred in Harry the Seventh's Chapel, among the monuments of the Kings." The pompous monument of the Cavendish Duke of Newcastle and his high-flying spouse is the climax rather

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of a great pose than of a great career; Marlborough lies at Blenheim, and Howe was the first of a long line of warriors to be buried in St. Paul's. Wolfe was buried at Greenwich; but his sumptuous monument in the abbey recalls to posterity the fame of his achievements and his untimely death.

Chatham was buried in the north transept, where ever since the statesmen have found a resting-place over against the poets in the opposite "corner." "High over these venerable graves towers the stately monument of Chatham, and from above his effigy, graven by a cunning hand, seems still, with eagle face and outstretched arm, to bid England be of good cheer, and to hurl defiance at her foes." The younger Pitt was buried in his father's vault, and Fox lies close by.

Still it is in Poet's Corner that the visitor to the abbey loves most to linger. Washington Irving says: "A kinder and fonder feeling takes the place of that cold curiosity or vague admiration with which they gaze on the splendid monuments of the great and the heroic. They linger about these as about the tombs of friends and companions." It seems to have been the magnetic dust of Chaucer, the first warbler, that gathered the poets together in this corner, and yet, in characteristically English fashion, he owed the honour of burial in the abbey less to his genius than to the fact that for some twenty months he held the office of the Clerk of the Works in the Palace of Westminster. The present tomb, however, is not contemporary. It was erected in 1551 by a certain Nicholas Brigham, himself a poet. Spenser was the first to join him, and then Beaumont, and when Shakespeare died in the following year it was expected that he would be gathered to his brethren:

Rare Beaumont, lie

A little nearer Spenser, to make room

For Shakespeare in your threefold fourfold tomb.

However, he lies at Stratford undisturbed. Ben Jonson was buried in the nave, and, according to the tradition, in an upright posture. Dryden, in spite of his Catholicism, was buried close to Chaucer; in fact, according to Pepys, in his very grave, and Matthew Prior lies, by his own request, at the feet of Spenser.

Milton's name was naturally under a cloud during the merry time of the Royalist reaction, when, as Johnson put it, " regicides

could no longer boast their wickedness." Dean Sprat refused to sanction even so much as an incidental mention of him in the epitaph of Phillips, but under Atterbury's régime the void was filled. Posterity will perhaps demand that Byron should be commemorated in the church which has already admitted the bust of Burns in irrelevant proximity to Shakespeare.

It was in Westminster Abbey, then, some weeks ago, that the King was to have been the centre of an Imperial pageant, without its like in history-a true roi soleil. "Remember, Caesar, that thou art mortal" was whispered to the great Roman on the occasion of his supreme triumph. Thoughts like this might possibly have occurred to some, but no one was prepared for the appalling intelligence that the King was nigh unto death, that the summons which must come to every man was audible and imminent. The character of our celebration has changed, and the note is one of thanksgiving rather than of triumph. In the curtailed ceremony there will be less of pomp, but perhaps more of prayer. For the second time in his career the King has been felix opportunitate morbi. To-day will see him "anointed with the oil of gladness-above his fellows."